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WEST INDIES LTD.                                   GUILLEN

You'll find down here both bankers and banks,
legislators and stock market men,
doctors, reporters, generals and cranks;
the porters carry, the lawyers defend.

Having all this and more we progress undaunted;
we'd send out for it if there was anything we wanted.
West Indies! Coconuts, tobacco, brandy. . . .
black-skinned folks with a smile always handy!

I sing of you, oh insular land!
I sing of you, oh land so tight!
I sing of land that seems just right
for coco-palms and fine soft sand
near ports where the Orinoco departs
and countless other excursions are planned
for people who know nothing of art,
among them not one crazy man.
From Afghanistan, Tahiti and Seoul they fly,
the tourist and the traveller hearty,
to munch a piece of our blue sky
and wash it down with a shot of Bacardi.
We've ports where they speak English pure,
beginning in "yes" and ending in "sure,"
like cicerones of a cheap Cooks Tour.
West Indies! Coconuts, tobacco, brandy. . .
black-skinned folks with a smile always handy!

I laugh at you hard, Antillian refined,
a monkey-clown jumping north and south;
you try not to put your foot in your mouth,
but you've got it in right up to your thigh.
I'm laughing at you, aristocrat old,
(It's plain what you are though you try to hide it.)
I'm laughing at you 'cause the people won't buy it
when you talk of genius and coffers of gold.
I laugh at the trembling, obsequious spade,
ashamed of a hide burned black by the sun,
struck dumb by a car that the white man made,
when his great fist is the stronger one!
I laugh at the cop, at the drunk who falls,

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-16 13:24:01 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-16 15:18:26